I love to laugh. My boyfriend loves to be silly and make jokes. There is a clear want match. But often, I just don’t find him funny. I can tell that he really wants me to laugh so if I don’t – he’ll keep going and then it just gets awkward. Then he feels bad and I feel bad for not laughing.

It’s such an odd loop and I don’t know whether I should let go of my desire to find him funnier.
Or if I should let go of my thought that it’s my responsibility to protect him from feeling bad when I don’t think he’s funny.

This has begun to spiral into an insecurity for him and an irritation for me.
It’s like now I don’t want him to even try to be funny because I feel like my options are to either be inauthentic and fake laugh, or not laugh and feel bad.